These are ideas I thought up to end the next video games moral panic that comes up after a shooting spree or school shooting that has "connections" to video games. I thought these up during the Sandy Hook Moral Panic and think this is a great time to bring these up again and I think someone needs to get at least one of these into the Obama Admin. ASAP. I won't do it. I cannot get signatures no matter how hard I try. But someone else in the Gaming Industry should really consider this, because it will limit the possibility of legislation of video games in the future to a very slim chance.
During the last few video game related moral panics (Columbine, Sandy Hook, etc), hoaxes were spread that seemed to show that school shooters were influenced by video games. Hoaxes such as the "Doom Will Become Reality" Hoax after columbine. These Hoaxes contributed to legislation and were used to attempt sway the supreme court in Brown vs EMA by the Eagle Form Watchdog group. Media then went out and attacked violent games, often times using lies to attack them. Lies such as "Video Games make people violent!" are often cited by people in the media. Both of these contribute to the moral panic and make it spiral out of control. Moral panics can be Proven to cause anti-video games legislation and studies. The industry MUST take steps to prevent the the spread of such lies and hoaxes and the government AND media must be punished for spreading them.
A) Government Limitations
-Government cannot use the Obscenity Clause to judge Violence!
(Obscenity clause has a part that says if the game lacks serious literary, scientific, and educational values, it gets fined. No one in a panel deciding this will say it has these values if they get offended by the violent content!)
-Government forbidden from drafting any bill that by accident or purposely causes the lack of sales of violent games to adults.
(No More laws like the CA bill that started Brown VS EMA. No more crap like this)
-Government forbidden from taxing the "Use", "Storage", or "Consumption" of Violent Games.
(No More making everyone who plays a violent game have to pay a ridiculous tax)
-Government forbidden from Taxing Violent games by a percentage higher than 20%
-Government Video Game Studies are Illegalized
-Government officials should be jailed for making up lies about violent games.
-Government forbidden with tampering with the ESRB and cannot make a new rating system IF it gets abused to rate all games so they cannot be sold in stores at all.
Examples of Lies: (proof it's a lie)
"Studies prove Violent games cause real life violence!"
(No study has ever been done that proves this, EVER! Many prove "Aggression" though)
"Violent games are used to break down the inhibition to kill in the military!"
(A person in the military debunked this. Go here for a debunking. Too long to post here)
"Violent games are training tools!"
(Most violent games are not. Only 1 series "America's Army" is)
"Violent games allow you to rape a woman!"
(Not a single violent game since Custers revenge has this feature. That was released in 1989!)
"Violent Games are marketed to kids"
(The Average age of a gamer is 34 according to a ESRB study)
"Violent Games make kids turn into Child Molesters!"
(Brought up by two different people after sandy hook with NO proof!)
"Violent Game Fans are Terrorists!"
(Posted on a site online attacking a marathon bombing game, no proof whatsoever that this is true)
Example of Hoaxes used to attack games after School Shootings
"Eric Harris said Doom Will Become Reality"
(A fake Harris Site popped up on April 21 1999 that said this. FBI Proved this was a hoax site)
"A Hate Site Tracking Group found a modified version of doom on Harris's Website that allowed him to train for the massacre"
(The version of doom that was modified in the article had features doom could not do in 1999 "Infinite Weapons/New Weapons/A second Shooter with New AI/Running out of ammo killed both the second shooter and the player", therefore the modified version of doom is a hoax)
"Adam Lanza's PC, contained a "gamer Scoresheet" with specifics on 500 murders"
(His PC's HDD was Destroyed WITH A HAMMER, how could they even find the fake spreadsheet?)
-Amicus Briefs that use the above lies to sway a supreme court case about a violent game related legislation must be fact checked by a panel of game industry members who know these are lies, and the person who drafted the amicus brief gets heavily fined and barred from future amicus briefs. (Eagle Forum already tried this tactic with some of the above hoaxes during Brown vs EMA)
B) Media Limitations
This covers Media groups (Tv Stations, Newspapers, Websites of those two, ) and Watchdog Groups (PTC, Eagle Forum, National Institute of the Media and the Family, Common Sense Media, etc.) and Police (Police Stations (They often attack games))
-Any newspaper caught writing an article that makes up facts to "prove" a game caused a school shooting and it can be proven by an industry panel, license revoked, fined 2 million dollars, writer thrown in jail for 10 years.
-Any newspaper trying to stretch the truth on violent games, fined 2 million dollars, thrown in jail for 2 years
-Any Newstation making up nonsense about violent games and it can be proven by the above panel,
the tv station shut down, they get fined million dollars, and they get tried for inciting the populace in a dangerous way, and license revoked of anyone involved.
Media now has to be 100% FACTUAL when talking about violent games
-Any Watchdog group that submits an Amicus Brief that contains the above lies and/or hoaxes, gets jailed for 20 years, their property taken by the government and their website shut down forever)
-Any Watchdog group that makes up nonsense about video games on their site, or elsewhere, gets fined 500,000 dollars, their website shut down for 6 years, and gets jailed for 2 years.
-Anyone who goes on talk shows mentioning the above lies and/or hoaxes gets jailed for 10 years, and the talk show gets fined 500,000 dollars.
C) Frivolous lawsuit protection..
- A panel of video game industry members will filter through any lawsuits filed against a gaming company, and if the plaintiff and/or lawyers use above lies to sway the jury, the plaintiff fined 2 million dollars, the lawyer disbarred, etc.
D) Lawsuits
The Gaming industry is now recommended to sue anyone in the media making up anything about a game, anyone in the government, and anyone legislating video game violence in a way that will make video game not sell able to stores to adults.
E) Stopping the spread of the above lies
- Any forum that is found by the panel of the industry that has above lies being spread, the people get fined 2000 dollars and put in jail for 2 years.
- Anyone who calls video games trash, fined 50 dollars
- Anyone who threatens gamers, or insults gamers online, fined 12000 dollars, and thrown in jail for 5 years.
- Anyone doing the above should have their IP addresses made public to help this
- Anyone caught building a website that contains a new video game violence related hoax that proves a school shooter committed the shooting due to the violent game's influence, gets jailed for 5 years and find 2500 dollars.
Ok... This is my plan. I want someone to send this to "We the People" to petition the Obama Administration to do at least Some of these. I cannot do it. Last time I tried, I could not get enough signatures at all. But someone else can. I think it's time we acted to Prevent the next moral panic rather then attacking it when it happens. Because it will happen someday and the quicker we do these actions the better.
Showing posts with label Obscenity Clause. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obscenity Clause. Show all posts
Monday, May 4, 2015
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Massachussets Apparently trying to Ban Violent Games, to adults as well.....
So after going to gamepolitics.com last night, I looked in the
legislation tab to see if any state had drafted Anti-Violent Game
Legislation. Surprisingly, My own state of Massachusetts, was among
those states, that drafted draconian anti-video game bills within the
last 6 years. Back in 2007, HB 1423 was drafted, it would apparently
"restrict violent games to minors", but that's not all... No No...
That's not all..
The Bill is so ridiculously draconian that is scares me just as much as the Bill that California Drafted that got Defeated for Unconstitutionality in Brown VS EMA. Like that bill, this one uses the greatly subjective obscenity clause to determine what games would be restricted.... Basically, if the game is offensive to the public, and the judges of the content find it lacks scientific, educational, or literary value, it would be restricted. The problem is if a game is so offensive that it offends the Judges (it seems any violent game with gore would do this, hell even guns in a game offended a co-worker years ago, Doom none the less), they would be so offended that they would say it lacks those values anyway, and therefore would use it against the game and then restrict it to minors.
The real issue is not this but the fact that it uses the restrict word in the wrong way, or in an unclear way. Restrict means to " to confine or keep within certain often specified limits or selected bounds" according to an online dictionary, so if you use this definition, the bill makes it illegal to sell games to adults now.... Even worse, the bill fails to even mention the punishments, who will judge the games, punishment (if any) for false judgement based on faked evidence or incorrect evidence or abuse of the judging process. Even if these issues are my imagination, it still uses a subjective system to determine what games are restricted and what ones aren't. How would the stores know which ones not to sell.... Like Brown VS EMA, they might end up taking all games off the shelves to prevent losses or lawsuits coming from violations of the law. So therefore this bill would create an effective ban because since stores don't know what games get restricted till to late, they then end up having to take ALL violent games off the shelves to prevent damages, especially if the bill is abused..
Text of the Bill in question for people wanting to read it In case it gets deleted later for any reason. (a lot of the stuff like this gets deleted suddenly, as of late anyway, such as the Brown vs EMA Amicus Brief, etc)
As of now the Bill is in the House Committee being stalled, but who knows for how long? This could come to bite my state and my freedom of choices in the Ass later. I am an Adult! I have the right to choose WHAT GAMES I Buy. I don't want this bill to backfire and make retailers get rid of violent games in fear like it could. And since I use online retailers mostly now, who knows how it will effect online retailers in MA, or the gaming industry here. This could be, in theory, Disastrous for gaming in my state.....
This is MY STATE we are talking about here... We don't do shit like this, uber save the children conservative nonsense here. Not till one of the hack psychologists crazy unproven theories invaded the minds of people like our Mayor, did this nonsense start, with the Banning of GTA ads on subway systems that don't have kids in them anyway (from my experience, their too dangerous for kids)... IF our Mayor ends up allowing this to pass, I will fight it tooth and nail with regular emails to ALL the Representatives and Senators in my State.... I won't let this go quietly and with out opportunity. I will start a campaign to get people to write EVERYONE in office in MA to oppose this and hopefully it will flood their Mailboxes so bad that they find it unconstitutional.
As of now, the bill is in committee, and who knows if it will be taken out for a vote anytime soon. But still I urge ALL Gamers in Massachusetts to email the Rep's about this. This is danger waiting to happen for Gaming here... Don't let this pass, gamers, spread the message, email your Rep's, send the message below to them to make them see that this is WRONG!!!
Text to email (please us this, don't write your own)
"As your constituent and as an avid Video Game fan, and also as an anti-censorship person, I oppose HB 1423 due to it's vague use of the phrase "restricting" in it's text, and other issues. I know this is an old bill, but according to gamepolitics.com, it's still being worked on, and hasn't completely died, according to them.It claims to be a bill that will restrict Sales of certain violent video games to adults, but when I didgoogle searches for similar bills in other states, only a few were restrict to adults type bills. Many were ills to restrict violent games to children... Since I oppose any form of Censorship, I immediately looked at the Bill's text, and compared it to others in other states. When looking up the definition of Restrict online, It seems this bill is actually designed to Restrict sales of violent games to adults, as in a ban of violent games to adults only. Since the bill's text is so vague, there is no part that clearly states "stores must not sell games to minors", so which way is it? Banning games from being sold to minors, or to Adults.... Based on other bills, it looks like the writer of such a bill Purposely left it out to abuse it for such a purpose, to make it illegal for stores to even sell games to adults.... Thus killing the video game industry in this state.
Other issues I have with it, are how it uses an incredibly biased Obscenity clause that states that if thegame is lacks scientific, literary, or educational value for minors, it is harmful to minors and can't besold, but since the the people who are deciding this (which it does not state), could simply use theirstandards of what offends them, they can simply say that the game offends them, so therefore it lacks those standards, and ban it to adults or children.... I feel Indecency and obscenity clauses are to vague and subjective to use as a test of what should be restricted, banned or both... It's too easy for someone else to abuse this, and IMHO, that's why the author wrote this bill to get an "effective ban" in MA passed... I just wanted to share my concerns..."
The Bill is so ridiculously draconian that is scares me just as much as the Bill that California Drafted that got Defeated for Unconstitutionality in Brown VS EMA. Like that bill, this one uses the greatly subjective obscenity clause to determine what games would be restricted.... Basically, if the game is offensive to the public, and the judges of the content find it lacks scientific, educational, or literary value, it would be restricted. The problem is if a game is so offensive that it offends the Judges (it seems any violent game with gore would do this, hell even guns in a game offended a co-worker years ago, Doom none the less), they would be so offended that they would say it lacks those values anyway, and therefore would use it against the game and then restrict it to minors.
The real issue is not this but the fact that it uses the restrict word in the wrong way, or in an unclear way. Restrict means to " to confine or keep within certain often specified limits or selected bounds" according to an online dictionary, so if you use this definition, the bill makes it illegal to sell games to adults now.... Even worse, the bill fails to even mention the punishments, who will judge the games, punishment (if any) for false judgement based on faked evidence or incorrect evidence or abuse of the judging process. Even if these issues are my imagination, it still uses a subjective system to determine what games are restricted and what ones aren't. How would the stores know which ones not to sell.... Like Brown VS EMA, they might end up taking all games off the shelves to prevent losses or lawsuits coming from violations of the law. So therefore this bill would create an effective ban because since stores don't know what games get restricted till to late, they then end up having to take ALL violent games off the shelves to prevent damages, especially if the bill is abused..
Text of the Bill in question for people wanting to read it In case it gets deleted later for any reason. (a lot of the stuff like this gets deleted suddenly, as of late anyway, such as the Brown vs EMA Amicus Brief, etc)
As of now the Bill is in the House Committee being stalled, but who knows for how long? This could come to bite my state and my freedom of choices in the Ass later. I am an Adult! I have the right to choose WHAT GAMES I Buy. I don't want this bill to backfire and make retailers get rid of violent games in fear like it could. And since I use online retailers mostly now, who knows how it will effect online retailers in MA, or the gaming industry here. This could be, in theory, Disastrous for gaming in my state.....
This is MY STATE we are talking about here... We don't do shit like this, uber save the children conservative nonsense here. Not till one of the hack psychologists crazy unproven theories invaded the minds of people like our Mayor, did this nonsense start, with the Banning of GTA ads on subway systems that don't have kids in them anyway (from my experience, their too dangerous for kids)... IF our Mayor ends up allowing this to pass, I will fight it tooth and nail with regular emails to ALL the Representatives and Senators in my State.... I won't let this go quietly and with out opportunity. I will start a campaign to get people to write EVERYONE in office in MA to oppose this and hopefully it will flood their Mailboxes so bad that they find it unconstitutional.
As of now, the bill is in committee, and who knows if it will be taken out for a vote anytime soon. But still I urge ALL Gamers in Massachusetts to email the Rep's about this. This is danger waiting to happen for Gaming here... Don't let this pass, gamers, spread the message, email your Rep's, send the message below to them to make them see that this is WRONG!!!
Text to email (please us this, don't write your own)
"As your constituent and as an avid Video Game fan, and also as an anti-censorship person, I oppose HB 1423 due to it's vague use of the phrase "restricting" in it's text, and other issues. I know this is an old bill, but according to gamepolitics.com, it's still being worked on, and hasn't completely died, according to them.It claims to be a bill that will restrict Sales of certain violent video games to adults, but when I didgoogle searches for similar bills in other states, only a few were restrict to adults type bills. Many were ills to restrict violent games to children... Since I oppose any form of Censorship, I immediately looked at the Bill's text, and compared it to others in other states. When looking up the definition of Restrict online, It seems this bill is actually designed to Restrict sales of violent games to adults, as in a ban of violent games to adults only. Since the bill's text is so vague, there is no part that clearly states "stores must not sell games to minors", so which way is it? Banning games from being sold to minors, or to Adults.... Based on other bills, it looks like the writer of such a bill Purposely left it out to abuse it for such a purpose, to make it illegal for stores to even sell games to adults.... Thus killing the video game industry in this state.
Other issues I have with it, are how it uses an incredibly biased Obscenity clause that states that if thegame is lacks scientific, literary, or educational value for minors, it is harmful to minors and can't besold, but since the the people who are deciding this (which it does not state), could simply use theirstandards of what offends them, they can simply say that the game offends them, so therefore it lacks those standards, and ban it to adults or children.... I feel Indecency and obscenity clauses are to vague and subjective to use as a test of what should be restricted, banned or both... It's too easy for someone else to abuse this, and IMHO, that's why the author wrote this bill to get an "effective ban" in MA passed... I just wanted to share my concerns..."
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